London. A Street.
 Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF alone, followed by his PAGE
 bearing his sword and buckler.

Falstaff	Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?

Page	He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water; 
	but, for the party that owed it, he might have more 
	diseases than he knew for.

Falstaff	Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me. The brain of 
	this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent 
	anything that tends to laughter more than I invent, or is 
	invented on me. I am not only witty in myself, but the 
	cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee 
	like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. 
	If the prince put thee into my service for any other 
	reason than to set me off, why, then I have no judgment. 
	Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my 
	cap than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an 
	agate till now; but I will inset you neither in gold nor 
	silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to 
	your master for a jewel - the juvenal the prince your 
	master, whose chin is not yet fledge. I will sooner have a 
	beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one 
	off his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face 
	is a face-royal. God may finish it when He will, 'tis not 
	a hair amiss yet. He may keep it still at a face-royal, 
	for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet 
	he'll be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his 
	father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he's 
	almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master 
	Dommelton about the satin for my short cloak and my slops?

Page	He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than 
	Bardolph: he would not take his bond and yours, he liked 
	not the security.

Falstaff	Let him be damned like the glutton! Pray God his tongue be 
	hotter! A whoreson Achitophel, a rascally yea-forsooth 
	knave, to bear a gentleman in hand and then stand upon 
	security. The whoreson smoothy-pates do now wear nothing 
	but high shoes and bunches of keys at their girdles; and 
	if a man is through with them in honest taking up, then 
	they must stand upon security. I had as lief they would 
	put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with 
	security. I looked a' should have sent me two-and-twenty 
	yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me 
	'security'. Well he may sleep in security, for he hath the 
	horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines 
	through it; and yet cannot he see, though he have his own 
	lanthorn to light him. Where's Bardolph?

Page	He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.

Falstaff	I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in 
	Smithfield. And I could get me but a wife in the stews, I 
	were manned, horsed, and wived.

                     Enter CHIEF JUSTICE and SERVANT.

Page	Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for 
	striking him about Bardolph.

Falstaff	Wait close; I will not see him.

Chief Justice	What's he that goes there?

Servant	Falstaff, and't please your lordship.

Chief Justice	He that was in question for the robbery?

Servant	He, my lord; but he hath since done good service at 
	Shrewsbury, and, as I hear, is now going with some charge 
	to the Lord John of Lancaster.

Chief Justice	What, to York? Call him back again.

Servant	Sir John Falstaff!

Falstaff	Boy, tell him I am deaf.

Page	You must speak louder, my master is deaf.

Chief Justice	I am sure he is - to the hearing of anything good. Go 
	pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.

Servant	Sir John!

Falstaff	What, a young knave, and begging! Is there not wars? Is 
	there not employment? Doth not the king lack subjects? Do 
	not the rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be 
	on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be 
	on the worst side, were it worse than the name of 
	rebellion can tell how to make it.

Servant	You mistake me, sir.

Falstaff	Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? Setting my 
	knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my 
	throat if I had said so.

Servant	I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your 
	soldiership aside, and give me leave to tell you you lie 
	in your throat if you say I am any other than an honest 
	man.

Falstaff	I give thee leave to tell me so? I lay aside that which 
	grows to me? If thou gett'st any leave of me, hang me; if 
	thou tak'st leave, thou wert better be hanged. You hunt 
	counter. Hence, avaunt!

Servant	Sir, my lord would speak with you.

Chief Justice	Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

Falstaff	My good lord! God give your lordship good time of day. I 
	am glad to see your lordship abroad; I heard say your 
	lordship was sick. I hope your lordship goes abroad by 
	advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, 
	have yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the 
	saltness of time, and I most humbly beseech your lordship 
	to have a reverend care of your health.

Chief Justice	Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to 
	Shrewsbury.

Falstaff	And't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned 
	with some discomfort from Wales.

Chief Justice	I talk not of his majesty. You would not come when I sent 
	for you.

Falstaff	And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into this 
	same whoreson apoplexy.

Chief Justice	Well, God mend him! I pray you, let me speak with you.

Falstaff	This apoplexy, as I take it, is a kind of lethargy, and't 
	please your lordship, a kind of sleeping in the blood, a 
	whoreson tingling.

Chief Justice	What tell you me of it? Be it as it is.

Falstaff	It hath it original from much grief, from study, and 
	perturbation of the brain. I have read the cause of his 
	effects in Galen: it is a kind of deafness.

Chief Justice	I think you are fallen into the disease, for you hear not 
	what I say to you.

Falstaff	Very well, my lord, very well. Rather, and't please you, 
	it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not 
	marking, that I am troubled withal.

Chief Justice	To punish you by the heels would amend the attention of 
	your ears, and I care not if I do become your physician.

Falstaff	I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient. Your 
	lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me in 
	respect of poverty; but how I should be your patient to 
	follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of 
	a scruple, or indeed a scruple itself.

Chief Justice	I sent for you, when there were matters against you for 
	your life, to come speak with me.

Falstaff	As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of 
	this land-service, I did not come.

Chief Justice	Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.

Falstaff	He that buckles himself in my belt cannot live in less.

Chief Justice	Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.

Falstaff	I would it were otherwise: I would my means were greater 
	and my waist slenderer.

Chief Justice	You have misled the youthful prince.

Falstaff	The young prince hath misled me. I am the fellow with the 
	great belly, and he my dog.

Chief Justice	Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound. Your day's 
	service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your 
	night's exploit on Gad's Hill. You may thank th' unquiet 
	time for your quiet o'erposting that action.

Falstaff	My lord - 

Chief Justice	But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping 
	wolf.

Falstaff	To wake a wolf is as bad as smell a fox.

Chief Justice	What! You are as a candle, the better part burned out.

Falstaff	A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow: if I did say of 
	wax, my growth would approve the truth.

Chief Justice	There is not a white hair in your face but should have his 
	effect of gravity.

Falstaff	His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

Chief Justice	You follow the young prince up and down like his ill 
	angel.

Falstaff	Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light, but I hope he 
	that looks upon me will take me without weighing. And yet 
	in some respects, I grant, I cannot go - I cannot tell: 
	virtue is of so little regard in these costermongers' 
	times that true valour is turned bearward; pregnancy is 
	made a tapster, and his quick wit wasted in giving 
	reck'nings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the 
	malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a 
	gooseberry. You that are old consider not the capacities 
	of us that are young; you do measure the heat of our 
	livers with the bitterness of your galls; and we that are 
	in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.

Chief Justice	Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are 
	written down old with all the characters of age? Have you 
	not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white 
	beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your 
	voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit 
	single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity? 
	And will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir 
	John!

Falstaff	My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the 
	afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly. 
	For my voice, I have lost it with hallooing, and singing 
	of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not. The 
	truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding; and 
	he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him 
	lend me the money, and have at him! For the box of the ear 
	that the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, 
	and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked him 
	for it, and the young lion repents - [Aside.] marry, not 
	in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack.

Chief Justice	Well, God send the prince a better companion!

Falstaff	God send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my 
	hands of him.

Chief Justice	Well, the king hath severed you and Prince Harry. I hear 
	you are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the 
	archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland.

Falstaff	Yea, I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you 
	pray, all you that kiss my lady Peace at home, that our 
	armies join not in a hot day; for, by the Lord, I take but 
	two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat 
	extraordinarily. If it be a hot day, and I brandish 
	anything but a bottle, I would I might never spit white 
	again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his 
	head but I am thrust upon it. Well, I cannot last ever. 
	But it was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if 
	they have a good thing, to make it too common. If ye will 
	needs say I am an old man, you should give me rest. I 
	would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as 
	it is: I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than 
	to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

Chief Justice	Well, be honest, be honest, and God bless your expedition!

Falstaff	Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish me 
	forth?

Chief Justice	Not a penny, not a penny: you are too impatient to bear 
	crosses. Fare you well. Commend me to my cousin 
	Westmoreland.
								[Exeunt CHIEF JUSTICE and SERVANT.

Falstaff	If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man can no 
	more separate age and covetousness than a' can part young 
	limbs and lechery; but the gout galls the one, and the pox 
	pinches the other; and so both the degrees prevent my 
	curses. Boy!

Page	Sir?

Falstaff	What money is in my purse?

Page	Seven groats and two pence.

Falstaff	I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse. 
	Borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease 
	is incurable. Go bear this letter to my Lord of Lancaster; 
	this to the prince; this to the Earl of Westmoreland; and 
	this to old Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to 
	marry since I perceived the first white hair on my chin. 
	About it: you know where to find me.
													[Exit PAGE.
	A pox of this gout! - or a gout of this pox; for the one 
	or the other plays the rogue with my great toe. 'Tis no
	matter if I do halt: I have the wars for my colour, and my 
	pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will 
	make use of anything; I will turn diseases to commodity.
													[Exit.
